This is a good chance to catch up on personal affairs-I’ll be taking off myself for a few hours as soon as the second mate gets back.”
I rubbed my forehead in exasperation. “Where do you go from here?”
Winstein was getting a little irritated. “We take this load to St. Catharines, at the other side of the lakes. Why do you ask?”
“What’s your route, I mean-do you stop anyplace along the way where I could get off?”
The first mate looked at me strangely. “If you’re thinking of sailing with us, you’ll have to clear that with the captain, Miss Warshawski.”
“Yes, well, let’s assume he’s going to give his permission. Where’s the nearest place I could get off?”
He shook his head. “There isn’t anyplace on board for you to sleep-Mr. Bledsoe’s in the stateroom.”
I started to feel my temper rising. “I’m not asking for a place to sleep. That’s why I want to get off at the nearest place possible.”
“I guess that would be Sault Ste. Marie,” he said dubiously. “You could get off when we’re at the bottom of the lock. But we won’t reach there until three tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest. You’d still have to find someplace to spend the night.”
“Oh, never mind that,” I said impatiently. “I’ll lie down on the couch here in the bridge if I need to. But I’ve got to talk to the captain and Bledsoe. To Sheridan, too. And I’m damned if I’m going to fly around the country on the off chance of meeting up with them someplace.”
“It isn’t really my decision,” Winstein said pacifically.
“You’ll have to talk to Captain Bemis.” He returned to his papers and I left the bridge.
16 Stowaway
I took the Fairmont back to the Holiday Inn, singing “A Capital Ship for an Ocean Trip” and “The Barbary Pirates.” I repacked the little canvas bag and checked out, leaving a note for Roland Graham with the Ford’s keys at the counter. It was one o’clock. If the
By the time I’d eaten and found a taxi to take me out to Elevator 67 it was after three-thirty. The midday sun made the air hot enough for me to take off my sweater and stuff it into my canvas bag before once more climbing the ladder to the
They had just finished loading. The heavy grain chutes were being hauled into the elevator from above. Under the second mate’s direction, men began operating two little deck gantries to put the hatch covers back onto the hold openings. One man worked each crane, using controls in front of a small seat on the starboard side. He lifted the hatch cover while two seamen steadied it at either end-they were very large, unstable steel lids. Then he lowered the cover while the other two fitted it onto some twenty or thirty protruding bolts. The three would move along to the next cover while a fourth seaman followed behind with an enormous wrench, screwing all the bolts into place.
As I stood watching, I felt the ship begin to vibrate. The engines had been turned on. Soon the air was filled with their urgent racket. A trail of black diesel smoke drifted upward from the giant funnel. I had no idea how long the engines ran before the ship moved out, but I noticed a couple of seamen at the guy ropes on shore, ready to loose them as soon as the signal was given. I hadn’t come back a minute too early.
I felt very keyed up. I knew I was wasting time on deck when I should have been on the bridge confronting anyone who had returned, but I was very nervous and didn’t know what to say once I got up there. In my heightened state I thought I saw someone swimming away from the port side of the ship. I moved as quickly as I could past the clutter around the self-unloader but didn’t see anything. I stood straining my eyes against the reflecting water and finally saw a figure break the surface twenty yards away, close to the shore.
When I turned back, Bledsoe was just coming on board. He stopped to talk to the second mate, then headed for the bridge without seeing me. I was about to follow when it occurred to me I might be better off just stowing away and presenting myself after castoff. Accordingly, I moved to the back of the pilothouse where a stack of giant oil drums served as both garbage cans and an effective shield from the bridge. I sat down on a metal box, placed my bag against a coil of rope, and leaned back to enjoy the view.
I had momentarily forgotten the figure I’d seen, but now I noticed him-or her-walk out of the water some fifty yards away, on the other side of the elevator yard. A clump of trees soon hid the person from my sight. After that nothing happened for about forty-five minutes. Then the
Two gray-green troughs appeared at my feet, the wake of the giant screws, and the distance between the ship and the wharf widened quickly. Actually, the ship didn’t seem to move; rather, the shore appeared to back away from us. I waited another ten minutes, until we were a good mile or two from land and no one would be disposed to turn around to send me back.
Leaving my bag amidst the coiled rope, I made my way up to the bridge. I loosened the gun in its holster and released the safety catch. For all I knew, I was going up to face one or more killers. A few crew members passed me on my way up. They gave me curious stares but didn’t question my right to be there. My heart pounding, I opened the door to the bridge.
Up the flight of narrow wooden stairs. A murmur of voices at the top. I emerged into a busy scene-Winstein was going over charts at the drafting table. A burly, red-haired man with two inches of cigar in his mouth stood at the wheel taking direction from Captain Bemis. “Off the second port island,” Bemis said. “Off the second port island,” the helmsman repeated, turning the wheel slightly to his left.
Bledsoe stood behind, looking on. Neither he nor the captain turned when I came in, but Winstein looked up from the charts and saw me. “There she is,” he said quietly.
The captain turned at that. “Ah, Miss Warshawski. The first mate said you’d turn up.”
“Technically you’re a stowaway, Vic.” Bledsoe gave the glimmer of a smile. “We could lock you in the holds until we get to Sault Ste. Marie.”
I sat down at the round table. Now that I was here my nervous tension receded; I felt calm and in charge. “I only have a rudimentary knowledge of maritime law. I gather the captain is complete master of the ship-that he evaluates any crimes committed under his jurisdiction and dispenses judgment, if any?”
Bemis looked at me seriously. “Technically, yes, as long as the ship is at sea. If some crime was committed on board, though, I’d probably just hang on to the person and turn him over to the regular judiciary at our next port of call.”
He turned to Winstein and told him to take over the bridge for a few minutes. The first mate finished drawing a line on the chart and then got up to stand by the helmsman. We were going through a channel with a lot of little islands planted in it-humps of earth with one or two trees or a scraggly bush clinging to them. The sun glinted off the gray-green water. Behind us, Thunder Bay was still visible with its line of elevators.
Bledsoe and Bemis joined me at the table. “You’re not supposed to come on board without the captain’s permission.” Bemis was serious but not angry. “You don’t strike me as a frivolous person and I doubt you did it frivolously, but it’s still a major breach of maritime custom. It’s not a crime, per se, but I don’t think that’s what you were referring to, was it?”
“No. What I really wanted to know was this: suppose you have someone on board who committed a crime while he was on shore. You find out about it while you’re at sea. What do you do with that person?”
“It would depend in part on what the crime was.”
“Attempted murder.”
Bledsoe’s eyes narrowed. “I assume this isn’t hypothetical, Vic. Do you think one of this crew tried killing someone? Who and why?”
I looked at him steadily. “I was the intended victim. I’m trying to find out for sure that someone here wasn’t after me.”
For a count of ten there was no sound in the small room but the faint throb of the engines. The helmsman kept his eyes in front of him, but his back twitched. Bemis’s jaw set in an angry line.
